Neo-Nazi gang leader Dimitri Bogotich has received a prison sentence for attacks in Israel carried out between 2005-2007.
Bogotich, whose Patrol 36 gang operated in Petach Tikva and Tel Aviv, was sentenced Thursday by the Tel Aviv District Court to five years and nine months in prison. He was convicted last month in a plea bargain for his role as the leader in dozens of race-related attacks by the group, which also desecrated a number of synagogues in the area.Bogotich was able to flee Israel to Kyrgyzstan, where he was picked up and arrested in the fall of 2010. He was extradited to Israel at the beginning of this year and formally arrested in Israel as soon as he landed at Ben Gurion International Airport.
Eight suspected non-Jewish members of his gang were arrested in 2007 on charges of attacking various individuals, but Bogotich escaped justice, fleeing to the former Soviet Union satellite.
Videos confiscated by police at the time of their arrest showed gang members violently attacking foreign workers as well as a person who tried to help one of their victims, after he admitted that he was Jewish.
Other materials found by investigators at the time included weapons, a Nazi uniform and photos of the group snapping to a “Heil Hitler” salute in front of a Tel Aviv synagogue.